274 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and of " mutual relations " (" the relation of organism to 

 organism, the most important of all relations "). 



As he states in chap. iv. of the Origin : " No one ought to 

 feel surprised at much remaining as yet unexplained on the 

 origin of species, if we make due allowance for our profound 

 ignorance of the mutual relations of the inhabitants of the 

 world at the present time, and still more so during past ages." 



I cannot but think that if Darwin's great works on '* Varia- 

 tion " and " Fertilisation " had been more widely and more 

 thoroughly studied, this would have greatly facilitated the 

 acceptance of" Symbiosis." 



Huxley likewise foreshadowed a new synthesis when he 

 stated : " When we know that living things are formed of 

 the same elements as the inorganic world, that they act and 

 react upon it, bound by a thousand ties of natural piety, is it 

 probable, nay, is it possible, that they, and they alone, should 

 have no order in their seeming disorder, no unity in their 

 seeming multiplicity, should suffer no explanation by the dis- 

 covery of some central and sublime law of mutual connection ? " 



There seems to be, indeed, a central or cosmic law of life, a 

 constitutional law of the universe, which may be stated thus : a 

 body should possess all that is necessary, but no more. Any 

 superfluity acts as an impediment, apt to cause disease, inas- 

 much as it militates against usefulness in Symbiosis. 



And this would apply in a similar way in the physical 

 world. A body needs to be pure and austerely constituted, 

 lest it lose resistance pari passu with (cosmic) usefulness. 



Some fifteen years ago Prof. Patrick Geddes remarked in a 

 preface to a book on Parasitism, Organic and Social: "May 

 we not therefore hope some day to see an antithetical title to 

 the present one — Symbiosis, Social and Organic ? Neither 

 economist nor naturalist is ready to write such a book." 



Most readers, I think, will agree with me that the time has 

 arrived to attempt a new generalisation. 



